Impulsive Me.

Good advice from anonymous rebel of Iași, Romania.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about impulses. I’ve come to determine that the closer you are to God--to the best version of yourself--the more you can trust your impulses. And the more you must disregard second thoughts. A few weeks ago, I had an impulse. Looking back, I’m sure it was a divine thought, because it definitely wasn’t my own. But all my fallible human “intellect” pushed the thought away—hid it, buried it, tucked it in a place where I thought (hoped) it could be ignored. And the moment passed me by.

Later. I thought about it. I realized that acting would not have yielded any real danger--maybe some slight discomfort. But this discomfort made itself huge and important in my thoughts, until I allowed it to overwhelm the original idea. I allowed it to. And did nothing.

I am learning from this.

Today, I am on a special quest to follow all good or even harmless impulses.

Often they’re trivial victories:

Didn’t put on foundation this morning.

Drove to church for a meeting, left the car there, and walked home.

Stopped and sat on the bench facing the fountain pond for a while.

Read for a while there.

I prayed there. And knelt down on the grass. Cold damp earth, and tights. Where people might see.

I read the end of Job. And wrote down all sorts of thoughts about it.

And those aren't even all of them! But they made this morning all its own. And I loved them for it.

Nearly home, I found myself rejoicing in all these simple impulses I’d decided to follow—and in the glorious morning I’d had because of it! Why wouldn’t I follow every one of my impulses? Life was good. Life was unpredictable and spontaneous. Life was purposeful.

Then. THEN. Just as pride filled me near full, I took a look at the house across the street from mine. My parents knew them—I’d met them once or twice before, nice people. They had a son home from college. From afar he seemed quite good looking. I’d had an ongoing joke with Molly about finding ways to meet him ever since Christmas. No such luck. I’ve seen him climb into his truck as I’ve clambered out of the Camry, already inside the garage. I’ve mistakenly stared at him as I jogged by, forgetting that when I don’t put my contacts in and can’t see others, they can still see me—especially when I’m squinting and staring in a laborious sort of way.

I stood there on the sidewalk for several minutes, watching the house. Not sure what I was watching for—signs of life? The entire street was still, although his truck was parked right outside. If only he’d appear and I could just walk up to him and introduce myself. At this point, my desire to meet him had very little to do with his good looks. I wanted to cross this alienating distance between neighbors. We were about the same age—who knows? We could develop some sort of friendship. If nothing else, we could wave at each other as we climbed in and out of our cars together. Waving is nice.

What if I just knocked on the door and introduced myself to him? As soon as I had the thought I cringed. No. NO. It’s 10:30 on a Sunday morning—people are lazy and do not wish to be bothered. And how weird would that be to knock on the door just to introduce myself to him? Can anyone else say desperate?! They’d think so.

Then I realized what I was doing. Second guessing. Talking myself out of it. How much harm could meeting him do? A little: maybe they’d be weirded out. But not much. So why was I still frozen to the sidewalk on the other side of the street? I contemplated my situation: I could turn around and go back inside, comfortable. Easy. But hard: I was on a roll. If I let this impulse slip by me, how much easier will it be to let future impulses slip by? I’d soon be picking and choosing impulses as I pleased, until my rationale could be that getting out of bed took too much effort; I was comfortable. Blast it, no one gets anywhere in this life by being comfortable. Soon enough I wouldn’t even be able to recognize an impulse that scratched its way up my back.

Yet, if I did do it—how much easier would it then be to follow my next impulse? Whatever it was probably could not compare much with this. I laughed at myself: only a moment ago I had rejoiced in my own spontaneity. Now, at the first sign of a challenge, I was ready to back down. I had to do it.

Before I realized it, I had begun taking steps across the street towards his house. All I was going to do was knock, ask for him, and merely introduce myself. Tell him that I’d seen him around and thought it about time we’d met, since we lived so close. I was knocking on the door.

Dogs. Barking barking barking. If they were home, they’d know someone was there. Waiting. I should knock again. What—be rude and creepy?! I knocked again, more timidly this time. But still a knock. Waiting and barking, barking and waiting. Finally my stomach made its way back down the walkway and my feet followed.

Nothing!

Buuuuuttt....

I DID it.

Impulses this way, if you please.